The Question We Need To Start Asking Men

The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.

Charles Kuralt

One of the big issues brought up constantly about gender inequality is the fact that professional women are asked how they plan to balanced their professional life with their family life, yet men where never asked this. Corporate society expects women to prioritize their role as a wife or a mother above their professional ambitions, yet this kind of expectation isn’t placed on men. After so many years of men expected to neglect their family life, maybe it’s time asking them the same question and expect them to have an answer.

There is a social assumption that the role of the man is simply to be a good provider. The harder he works, the more he demonstrates how dedicated he is to his family. If this is true, why do so many men feel guilty about neglecting their family because of work? Why do so many spouses or kids feel neglected by an absentee father whose only role within the family is that of a the guy who pays the bills? Why do so many men made to feel that their role in society is to be little more than a credit card holder?

This needs to change. Too often men assume that the only way to be a real man is to be a good provider, even if this means sacrificing their family life. They are told to equate professional success with their success as a husband or father, never wanting to realize the damage we do to men and their families when creating that relationship. We need to start asking men to balance their professional life with their personal life.

Keep in mind that I am not talking about not providing for your family. What I am talking about is to keep priorities about what’s important in life. We need to open our eyes before we damage ourselves and those around us beyond repair.

Ambitious and competitive professional behavior has been ingrained so deeply within our mind that we end up assuming that the only way to succeed within our modern corporate world is to neglect our family. “I am providing my family a better life” has become the mantra that most use to justify their actions, without realizing how a truly better life for your family doesn’t come from a bigger TV or even a bigger home. It comes from having a bigger heart and the time to share it.

Yet that neglect of our family is viewed by so many bosses as a sign of disloyalty to the employment. They will try to blackmail and shame you into submission under the threat of someone else getting a promotion, the raise, or simply the risk of losing your job. Honestly? If your boss is making you choose between your work and your family, it’s time to find a new job. Changing jobs is a lot easier than getting a divorce or the guilt of neglecting a child.

Don’t turn your role within your family into simply a walking wallet and then complain that they don’t view you as anything else. By the same token, don’t let anyone in your family turn you into a walking wallet. Get involved and become an actual part of the family and the home. Spend time with your spouse and have fun with your kids. Getting to know what does on in their lives is a lot more important than covering the bill for their lives. In the case of divorce, covering your financial obligations DOES NOT excuse you from your familial obligations. In reality, your familial obligation to your kids far exceeds any child support agreement you have.

With all this in mind, don’t let anyone reduce your role in life to a bank account. The first person that needs to stop doing this is you. Work shouldn’t be the reason to live, but a tool to get a life. Learn to value yourself and those around you. Jobs come and go, so does money. At the end, you are simply left with the smiles and laughter you shared with those close to you. 

"Dress: Business Casual"

Costume, hair and makeup can tell you instantly, or at least give you a larger perception of who a character is. It's the first impression that you have of the character before they open their mouth, so it really does establish who they are.

Colleen Atwood

Most articles based on Gentlemanly behavior usually deal with how a gentleman treats ladies or in how a Gentleman treats himself. Today I want to talk about how a Gentleman has an “unfair” advantage in the professional world, starting by the interview process.

A friend asked me to help re-define himself as he wanted to change his professional environment. After years of jeans and work boots, he was ready to move into a slacks and oxfords position, and knowing how that is my “natural habitat” as well as having previously been a team recruiter, he asked for my help.

This article isn’t about how to work the interview process. Resume building I leave to the Technical HR people, as the first screening is actually done by computers looking for key words. This is more about how you present yourself and sell yourself. 

The next step was the obvious review of what we were working with when they looked at the man behind the resume. His social media presence and discretion… Ok, before I continue here I need you to understand the inter-connectivity of modern life. Any professional worth his title knows to Google the people they will meet. So if you think those embarrassing pictures won’t be seen and taken into account when they meet you, you are sadly mistaken. The same goes with any drunk posts, anger filled rants, or any straight white boy texting.

3 hours and about ½ a bottle of scotch later, part of it being him reminiscing his last few years and most of it being me me wondering what he was thinking when he uploaded those pictures or posted those comments, his digital presence was somewhat presentable. With that ready, he sent out his resume.

A couple of days later (thanks to a headhunter), he gets called in for an interview. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that an interview just meant he simply passed the minimum requirements and nothing more. So they send him the meeting invite, which he forwards to me. And that’s where something caught my eye, something that actually promoted this post.

Dress: Business Casual

My first reaction was to wonder what kind of person goes to an executive job interview without Business attire. And then I was suddenly reminded of every half assed professional who had no idea how to project their potential, who thought being “present” was good enough. And that’s when the shark in me smelled blood in the water, as my old aggressive business side crept out. Remember when I said I didn’t have the heart to tell him what passing the resume stage was? I did now. And more…

The reality is that people will size up a person and create an opinion about them somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes after meeting them. After that, people will gravitate to anything that justifies their preconception, to whatever proves them right. If the person thinks you’re successful, they will willingly look at what proves you’re successful. If a person thinks you’re inept, they will look to be proven right about. Your first impression sets up your subsequent beliefs about a person. So you have about a minute to create an impression and the rest of the time is to cement that impression into the interviewer.

Remember when I mentioned the importance of your social profile? You begin setting up that first impression even before they meet you. And it’s up to you to make that impression memorable after they meet you.

As for the rest of his interview training? Well I believe in discretion and trade secrets so…

Now we wait and see how he measured up against the other candidates.